Maintenance of Flood Protection Infrastructure in the North Sea Region - an Analysis of Existing Maintenance Strategie

25 January 2020 - Published by Eric Boessenkool

Many flood protection assets in the North Sea Region (NSR) are in the end of their life cycle. In the years to come many assets will have to be rebuilt or replaced. The analysis of maintenance of flood protection assets shows varying approaches to the structural organization and the conduction of maintenance in the NSR countries.

With the aim to improve the life expectancy and functions of flood protection assets and minimize costs and investments lessons can be learned from the management of the existing assets. The EU Interreg project FAIR is dealing with these challenges. Although proper maintenance of flood protection assets is crucial in order to maintain a constant level of safety, its importance is still often underestimated. Documentation of maintenance processes and strategies is often insufficient. This hinders mutual exchange of experiences and a common improvement process in the NSR. In the framework of the FAIR project maintenance processes of the FAIR partners in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden and Norway are being analyzed through expert interviews. First results of this inventory analysis will be presented in this paper. Link to the paper.